Anarchic update news all over the world - 16.06.2019

Today's Topics:

   
1.  London Anarchist Communist Group: Forthcoming London
      ACG/Rebel City Meetings (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #295 - Cherifa (Women's
      yellow vests Paris - Ile-de-France): "Against social violence"
      (fr, it, pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  MEDIA, Rojava, In the Heart of Syria's Darkness, a
      Democratic, Egalitarian and Feminist Society Emerges
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  anarkismo.net: We share our greetings for the formation of
      the sister UCL (Libertarian Communist Union) by Various
      organizations in South America (ca, it) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  vrije bond: Organise a local meeting in preparation of the
      Vrije Bond Congres! (nl) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  avtonom: 4 years in the DPR: impressions of a Ukrainian
      miner -- June 10, 2019 - 11:03 - sitiazion [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





Saturday 15th June 1-3pm: London ACG Meeting -- At May day Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London 
EC4 -- Vision of a society without government ---- Is organised human life possible 
without a state? How would it be better than the situation we have now? Why have so many 
people and movements fought for a world without government? This session will explore the 
history of radical anti-statist movements and look at the potential these movements and 
ideas have in our society today. An Antiuniversity event: ---- 
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/vision-of-society-without-government-tickets-60515406209 
---- No Gods No Masters: Rebel City Collective Meeting -- Wednesday, June 19, 2019 -- 
7-9pm -- * Mayday Rooms, 88 Fleet Street London EC4Y 1DH ---- Religious belief is still 
very strong, despite predictions it would disappear with science and the development of a 
secular society. For many, this is not a problem - we should be tolerant of the beliefs of 
others. After all, these beliefs are about things that we can't prove or disprove and 
don't really affect what happens in our society. Anarchists believe differently. Just as 
we reject other ‘masters' such as the bosses or the State, so we reject any belief that 
looks towards an external authority for what to believe and how to live. In addition, 
these beliefs very much do affect society, e.g. views on abortion, homosexuality, race. 
Throughout history people have used religion as a justification to oppress others, often 
with extreme violence, e.g. the slave trade, the Crusades and ISIS today. But how do we 
argue against religious beliefs? It is especially difficult when these beliefs are held by 
persecuted minorities and people we are working with in unions and community campaigns. 
This meeting will consider why anarchists reject religion, then invite participants to 
join a discussion about what strategies we can adopt to challenge religion in our society.
An Antiuniversity event:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/antiuniversity-no-gods-no-masters-tickets-61872054982
* Anarchism for Beginners: Rebel City Collective Meeting
Thursday, June 20, 2019
* 7-9pm
Mayday Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1DH
Anarchism is often represented in the media as meaning chaos and disorder. But nothing 
could be further from the truth. This meeting, presented by long-term active anarchists 
Rebel City Collective, will explain in simple terms what anarchism is, its different 
forms, what it wants to achieve, and how it might deal with difficult issues, such as 
police and prisons, for a future society. There will be plenty of time for questions from 
participants and discussion.
An Antiuniversity event:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/antiuniversity-anarchism-for-beginners-tickets-62041618150

https://londonacg.blogspot.com/2019/06/forthcoming-london-acgrebel-city.html

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Message: 2





During the movement of yellow vests, several groups of precarious women were born, and 
were able to be heard, including at the GA of Saint-Nazaire. Cherifa from Paris answered 
our questions. ---- Libertarian alternative: Can you introduce yourself? ---- Chérifa : 
Cherifa, a resident of the palace of women experiencing homelessness for thirteen years, 
mother and grandmother. ---- AL: Can you present the group Women vests yellow Paris - 
Ile-de-France ? ---- C.: Created from the beginning of the movement to continue the fight, 
our group Women yellow jackets is the first to have been created, the word of women being 
essential to the struggle that will not happen without us. Women who speak out and 
advocate come from all walks of life. They prove that solidarity brings and that the word 
is finally released ... Equality!!! Real democracy! Freedom!

Women on the front line! Women's demands must be put forward: precariousness affects more 
than 58% of women. In our group, we are women coming from various social situations. The 
idea is to put these claims ahead of yellow vests mostly male and often a little too macho.

AL: How was your group formed? Why did you find it necessary?
C.: More than necessary: vital and primordial, urgent. So that this government stops 
destroying society. We no longer have time to waste, it is necessary to take action 
against capitalism, against fascism, against colonialism.

AL: If you had to describe the yellow vests?
C.: Solidary and rebellious! We precarious women, at war, we will not let go! We have 
nothing left to lose. The time has come to build an egalitarian, democratic and free society.

AL: Did this mobilization change things in your life?
C.: Of course we do not come out unscathed to fight. It is an investment that takes all 
our time and energy. When we believe in a struggle we grow each day with multiple, 
generous and supportive encounters.

AL: It gave you a lot of work to take care of the site and you coordinated several groups 
of women yellow vests ...
C.: Oh yes a lot of work, hours of research, reading, reflection ... Get women to to 
become united and to have a culture of struggle and demand and of feminism, of class struggle.

AL: Did you go to AG AG Saint-Nazaire?
C.: Yes. It was interesting and energizing. In particular the creation and reflection 
workshops on repression, actions, ecology, European elections, demands ... >From this came 
a beginning of building a new democratic reflection. We demand at the next assembly a 
square specially women yellow vests! The next meeting of the Assembly of Assemblies will 
be in June.

AL: From this dynamic with the network that was formed you decided to lead a fight, can 
you explain me?
C.: Yes, a daily fight, starting with housing for women residing in social housing or 
other structures and who are in a precarious situation and where the rent is higher than a 
HLM. We are mobilized against evictions, against mixed shelters ... In this sense action 
was conducted Saturday, April 27 at 11 am outside the town hall of the XI th in Paris to 
lobby the mayor and demand immediate housing and suspend evictions.

We fight against gender-based violence, social violence, lesbophobia, transphobia, racism 
and poverty. Same fight against capital.

AL: And finally, is there a way to follow the mobilizations of the group ?
C.: Yes, by visiting our Facebook group, and on our Women's Vests page. And by supporting 
us to help us raise some money to help precarious women live with dignity and eat 
properly. This money also allows to have visual aids as well as being able to receive 
women coming from other regions of France to our AG, events, assemblies etc. Support for 
ladies yellow vests fighting on Leetchi.com

Precarious women! Women at war! Proud and crazy!

Interview by AL anti-patriarchy commission

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Cherifa-Femmes-gilets-jaunes-Paris-Ile-de-France-Contre-les-violences-sociales

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Message: 3






Four million people, thousands of communes, a non-hierarchical social structure and a 
cooperative economy. Why is no one talking about Rojava? ---- The most amazing thing about 
Rojava is that hardly anyone knows it exists. We hear plenty about Syria - the 
battlefields and chemical attacks, the brutality of ISIS and barbarity of the Assad 
regime. But very little has been written about the fact that in northeastern Syria an 
anarchist-feminist autonomous region has arisen that is the antithesis to everything 
around it. Well, maybe that shouldn't come as a surprise. In a world sinking ever deeper 
into consumer culture, careerist individualism and financial plutocracy, who can believe 
in the idea of a non-hierarchical society? A coherent autonomy without a centralized 
government? A cooperative economy? True gender equality? Yet this is precisely the vision 
that the people of Rojava - known officially as the Autonomous Administration of North and 
East Syria - are realizing in practice, in an appallingly hostile environment, surrounded 
by enemies bent on their destruction.

Against all odds, Rojava, which declared its autonomy in 2014, continues to exist - 
encompassing four million people, seven regions, hundreds of neighborhoods and thousands 
of communes. Several principles underlie Rojava's democracy. To begin with, it is 
decentralized and lacks any hierarchy, a democracy in which communities preserve their 
sovereignty and manage their lives by themselves. Second, it's an egalitarian democracy, 
which does not prefer one ethnicity or religion over others, and where women play an equal 
and essential role. And third, it's a democracy based on a fair, ecological and 
sustainable economy, which does not sabotage the environment and aims to meet the needs of 
the common people, not aggrandize the powerful. In short, the inhabitants of Rojava are 
trying to create a political entity that is the opposite of the capitalist nation-state. 
They are out to forge true democracy, a society in which the people is sovereign.

"We are all children of the village," says Zelal Ceger, co-chairwoman of Tev-Dem, the 
Movement for a Democratic Society in Rojava, which initially created the organizational 
structure of the autonomous entity, from the level of the commune up to the regional one.

"Our system is not like that in Europe," she notes in a recent interview arranged under 
the auspices of the Rojava Information Center, which works with foreign media and 
academics. "For example, go to our villages and look. If a house gets damaged, the whole 
village fixes that house together. The natural society was created in Mesopotamia, and 
even now we still have some of that with us, it's our basis. As such, our people are ready 
to create a communal life. But in the last 2,000 years of life under the state system, the 
state wanted to remove the communal life and ruin it for the people, and wanted society to 
disperse. After the[democratic and feminist]revolution started, we're coming together once 
again to build up that life."

Island prisoner

Rojava (meaning "west" in Kurdish - the region is actually located in western Kurdistan) 
constitutes a new solution to an old problem: the oppression of peoples. Like the Jews, 
the Kurdish people suffered for many long years at the hands of hostile rulers and 
regimes. Unlike the Jewish people, the Kurds have always lived, since antiquity, in a 
single, contiguous geographical area: the vast, mountainous region called Kurdistan. 
Despite that fact and their large numbers, however, a series of Great Power agreements 
after World War I split the Kurds into minority groups in four different countries: 
Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. As a result, their sense of common identity was lost and the 
Kurds were persecuted and attacked by four different oppressive regimes. Numbering some 35 
million in the region, the Kurds have long held the dubious title of the largest nation in 
the world without a state.

The collapse of Iraq, and afterward Syria, created a propitious moment to realize Kurdish 
sovereignty and create a state. In Iraq, the Kurdish Regional Government assumed control 
over some of the northern provinces, and has been steadily breaking away from the federal 
government. Even though, compared to their neighbors, women are treated better in Iraqi 
Kurdistan, it has the same political structure as other centralist nation-states. Its 
almost-exclusive reliance on local petroleum resources effectively made it another 
paternalistic, Middle Eastern oil-producing state. Revenues are divided among the rulers 
and their cronies, and because most of the material goods and investment capital come from 
Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan has become, in effect, Ankara's colony. The alliance between the 
two has been particularly vexatious.

Like Israel, Rojava, too, was an idea that evolved into a reality. It even has a visionary 
whose writings were the underpinnings of its creation: Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the 
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). When it was founded, in 1978, the PKK was a 
Marxist-Leninist movement whose aim was to establish a socialist state for the Kurdish 
people in eastern Turkey, which is northern Kurdistan. Turkey, for its part, tried to deny 
the existence of a Kurdish people and toughened restrictions on their language and 
culture. Even before a military coup in Turkey in 1980, the PKK felt that the situation 
was becoming more dangerous and violent. In 1979, Ocalan and other party leaders moved to 
Syria and dug in there. Ocalan lived in Syria for almost 20 years and became a revered 
figure among the Kurds, known fondly as "Apo" (uncle).

Already then, Ocalan grasped the importance of women in fomenting a true democratic 
revolution. Women played an active role in the PKK from the outset and became increasingly 
involved in organizational matters and in combat roles. The PKK's first women's 
organization was formed in 1986, and seven years later, Ocalan set up an all-female 
military unit. In his other activities, too, such as in military training and study camps 
of the PKK, Zelal Ceger relates, Ocalan introduced new norms to promote women's 
involvement, including in everyday affairs. He asked men to cook and not to expect their 
wives to do it, so that the women could devote their time to studies. Increasing numbers 
of female activists joined, the women's organizations grew stronger, and the seeds of the 
process were planted that would culminate in the socially egalitarian practices of Rojava.

While the PKK commanders waged the struggle from Syria, many of its activists returned to 
Turkey, resulting in a blood-drenched conflict between the party and the Turkish army 
between 1984 and 1993. About 40,000 people died, with both sides accused of deliberately 
targeting civilians. In February 1999, in an operation involving Turkish intelligence and 
the CIA (some in the PKK also accused the Mossad of involvement) - Ocalan was seized in 
the Greek embassy in Kenya and extradited to Turkey. A show trial was held in which Ocalan 
was charged with treason and sentenced to death. Fortunately for him, Turkey's attempt to 
enter the European Union - which had abolished the death penalty - led to the commutation 
of his sentence to life imprisonment.

For a decade, between 1999 and 2009, Ocalan was the only inmate in the prison on Imrali 
Island, in the Sea of Marmara, where he remains incarcerated today. In his small cell, 
guarded by 1,000 warders, he began to delve into Sumerian mythology and the origins of 
Neolithic cultures, as well as the history of the first city-states. He was influenced by 
a number of thinkers, among them Fernand Braudel, Immanuel Wallerstein, Maria Mies and 
Michel Foucault.

The theorist who influenced Ocalan most profoundly was Murray Bookchin, a Jewish-American 
writer and anarchist who formulated the theory of social ecology. Drawing on the 
connection between the environmental crisis and capitalist society, Bookchin argued that 
the enslavement and destruction of nature is the continuation of the enslavement of other 
human beings. To avert calamity, he observed, the structure of society needs to be 
rethought; a shift is needed from a rapacious capitalist society to an ecological social 
structure that maintains a balance between its parts. Consequently, Bookchin proposed a 
confederative-municipal entity by means of which communities could organize their lives 
independently.

Ocalan eventually forsook the nation-state concept, which he'd actually begun to turn away 
from even before his arrest. Instead, he proposed democratic confederalism, a fusion of 
Bookchin's social ecology and emergent Kurdish feminism, a system of decentralized social 
organization that would avert creation of a centralized government like that of Syria, 
which oppresses its people, and allow individuals and communities to wield true influence 
over their environment and activities, and most important, would ensure that women would 
play a vital and equal role at all levels of organization and decision-making.

Ocalan's ideology began to spread. When the protests of the Arab Spring reached Syria, in 
2011, and Assad's forces started to withdraw from western Kurdistan, the Kurds used the 
opportunity to establish autonomy, based on a well thought-out political program that they 
previously devised.

Zelal Ceger met Ocalan in 1993, in Syria. She had grown up with his ideology, but when she 
finally got to meet him, her knees shook, she relates. But Ocalan turned out to be a warm, 
friendly person, she says - very far from the dictatorial image sometimes associated with 
leaders of popular liberation movements. "When I was with Ocalan," she relates, "I felt 
simultaneously like a child and an adult. He was like a brother to us."

She goes on to explain that the Democratic Union Party (PYD) "could not organize the 
people on its own. We wanted to create an umbrella organization, a council, which could 
lead all of society. Therefore, we created the Movement for a Democratic Society, or 
Tev-Dem. Through Tev-Dem we could reach all the peoples: Kurds, Arabs, Syriacs, Armenians, 
Assyrians, Chaldeans, Circassians and everyone who lived in Rojava. We took everyone into 
account."

By August 2011, half the Kurds in Rojava were already organized in community councils. In 
that same month, 300 delegates from all parts of the region founded the People's Council 
of West Kurdistan, which in turn elected the Tev-Dem; the latter's members established and 
helped implement a bottom-up model of governance and autonomous administrative bodies. In 
January 2014, Rojava's de facto constitution was signed, declaring its commitment to 
freedom for all peoples, regardless of ethnicity or religion, and to gender equality, and 
setting forth the principles of decentralized democracy.

Millennia-old tradition

How can millions of people manage their lives autonomously? That is precisely the 
challenge of democratic confederalism, as practiced in Rojava. Their system of social 
organization continues to evolve, but its fundamental principles remain constant.

The basic unit of political organization in Rojava is the commune. Each commune consists 
of a few dozen families, and its members run their lives by themselves. They meet 
regularly to discuss the important issues and initiatives, and choose committees to 
advance them. They also elect two chairpersons, a man and a woman. The coordinating board, 
headed by those chairpersons, sends representatives to the next level of organization: the 
locality. It consists of a number of communes, and here too committees are founded to 
organize tasks, coordinate between the communes and elect the representatives to the next 
level - the district. Above that level are the canton (in a few cases), the region, the 
General Council for the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, with 70 
members, and the Syrian Democratic Council, the chief legislative authority in Rojava.

There are as many as nine different committees at the different levels, each devoted to a 
specific subject. For example, there are reconciliation committees, comprising five women 
and five men, which arbitrate a variety of disputes. Only about a third of the cases 
brought before these bodies at the first level are referred to the next one, to regional 
courts; the others are resolved at the communal level. In any event, every committee 
regardless of its mandate must have at least 40 percent female membership, and be headed 
by both a woman and a man.

Women also take part in Rojava's military and police forces: There are both coed and 
all-female units. The goal is to ensure that women do not remain outside the centers of 
decision-making in the security realm - and elsewhere. "Without equality of the sexes, any 
call for freedom and equality is pointless and illusory," Ocalan wrote in a 2010 manifesto.

Rojava's entire political system is constructed in a way that grants people the true power 
to decide how they wish to run their lives and about their environment. After all, who 
knows better about what a particular neighborhood needs than the people who actually live 
there? For example, at a meeting held in April in a commune of 25 families near the city 
of Derik, in the northern part of Rojava, residents met to decide what to do with an area 
of about 30 dunams (7.5 acres) surrounding their village. They agreed to devote most of it 
to growing crops cooperatively, and a smaller section to a community center. While in the 
past people needed approval from various government agencies just to plant a tree, 
restrictions on building have now been lifted: Rojava is replete with construction sites. 
The ultimate goal is to avert the disintegration of the communally based society, as has 
occurred in the industrialized West.

According to Mohammed Said, co-chairman of the PYD party in a locale in Jazira, one of 
Rojava's largest regions, the sort of social structure being introduced today is based on 
a tradition going back thousands of years.

"Fifty years ago, I remember, I was living in a village of five or six families," Said 
recalled in an interview. "In the summer, if we needed to build a house, we didn't pay 
others to do it. We formed a group and we built it. If a house burned, everyone got 
together and contributed until that house was okay again. If someone fell ill, everyone 
would help. The communal system we want to build up is exactly that."

Khalid Ibrahim, a member of a reconciliation committee in Derik, describes the workings of 
the judicial system in Rojava. "In this committee there are nine members. Of these, two 
are elected members of the General Council in Derik and seven are elected directly by the 
reconciliation committees of the localities. An election is held every two years, and the 
next election is scheduled to take place in another seven months." However, he notes, that 
may not be possible, "because it's not clear if the political situation in northeast Syria 
will be stabilized" by that time - a reference to the activities of the Turkish armed 
forces that have occupied a neighboring district.

"Generally, when a conflict occurs, it's solved at the commune level," Ibrahim says. "If 
not, the[reconciliation]committee members write a report and send the case to the next 
level, the locality. If the conflict is not solved there, the committee writes a report 
and sends the case onward. If the conflict is still not resolved, it is referred to the 
justice institutions that operate at the provincial, regional and federation levels, to 
carry out a deeper investigation."

Trained jurists are found only in Rojava's official judicial bodies, but the members of 
the reconciliation panels are ordinary people whom the community trusts to listen to all 
sides and to resolve conflicts fairly.

Ibrahim offers a case history concerning a debt: "Mahmood used to sell yogurt from his 
village to Ahmed. But Ahmed hadn't paid him for six months. Finally, Mahmood brought the 
case to his commune's reconciliation committee. A committee member listened to both sides, 
understanding both the reasons why the shop owner didn't pay and the economic needs of 
Mahmood's family. She facilitated an agreement between the two. They agreed to reduce the 
debt, and agreed that Mahmood's family would have the right to acquire other goods from 
the shop freely to satisfy its needs. They both signed a contract. With time, the 
relationship between Mahmood's family and Ahmed became close again."

Jihad Omer, co-chairman of the PR office of the Syrian Democratic Council, Rojava's main 
legislative body, used to serve on a reconciliation committee in the Afrin district, north 
of Aleppo, where he helped resolve a long-running conflict. "About 35 years before," he 
relates, "some killings took place between two families from two different villages. Each 
one killed some members of the other's family. Since then, the two families have not 
spoken a word to each other and they could not go to the other's village.

"Our committee of conciliation consisted of old men and old women who have people's 
respect. We spoke to the elders of each family, again and again. We got five members from 
each family to sit together and share all their sorrows. We explained to them that we need 
to live as a society with love. We told them that they are all living on the same land, 
they are from the same people, so why should they let their old quarrels keep going? After 
a month and a half of meetings, we got the two families to sit together and eat together. 
And this was a big victory."

There has been a dramatic improvement in the lives of Rojava's women thanks to its 
feminist ideology and social structure, says Khawla Diad, a PYD co-chairwoman in a town 
called Til Temir. An Arab woman, she was initially suspicious of the revolutionary 
movement that gave rise to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, she told 
the Rojava Information Center. "At first we thought it was a nationalist revolution for 
the Kurds, not a revolution for peoples' brotherhood and democracy. But 
Apo's[Ocalan's]ideology was far-reaching. Slowly we saw that this ideology was not only 
for Kurds, but also for Arabs and Assyrians, and especially for women."

Describing the changes in the lives of women in Syria and in her own life, Diad becomes 
emotional: "Before the revolution women had no life, especially Arab women. They had no 
opinions, no work, no freedom. Arab women were only supposed to give birth, raise children 
and tend to home duties, and that's it. Women were nothing, they were slaves. Step by 
step, things changed. Kurdish women became an example for all women."

How have the lives of women changed thanks to communal organization?

Diad: "In many ways. For example, underage marriage. A girl of only 14 would be given to a 
man to be married. But not any more. Another thing is a second marriage. A man could take 
four women for himself. But not anymore. Now only one woman. Before, if I had brothers ... 
within our house I didn't have the right to anything in my family - not property or money 
or land. But now, women have the right to all those things."

What about the relations between the Kurds and the Arabs?

"The Syrian state tried to divide the Kurds and the Arabs. We do not accept this conflict. 
This land is for all of us, not just for Arabs or for Kurds. We organized ourselves 
according to the philosophy of Ocalan and said we do not want a nationalist state, we 
don't want Syria to be divided. We are one people together, we are brothers."

Diad is determined to continue working to promote revolutionary changes in the lives of 
women: "Before the revolution I was a person with no will, without any opinion, without 
existence," she says. "Today I am free, but other women are still enslaved. This 
philosophy has not reached them all. It's my role to bring it to them."

Social economy

Another vision harbored by the new democracy of Rojava involves a social economy - based 
not on communism but rather communalism. The goal is simple: to serve the citizens and not 
the owners of capital. The basis for achieving this is the creation of cooperatives guided 
by the universal values set forth by a Belgium-based NGO called International Cooperative 
Alliance: mutual help, mutual responsibility, democracy, equality, fairness and 
solidarity. There are hundreds of economic cooperatives in Rojava, on local and all other 
levels, whose establishment has been encouraged by the autonomous administration and by 
Kongra Star, a local confederation of woman's organizations. The cooperatives are in 
essence joining a global movement toward sustainable alternative economies.

The Cooperative Contract of Rojava, issued in August 2016, describes the principles and 
limitations devolving on the cooperatives. These include: one vote for each member; 
consultation with the relevant autonomous administration and consideration for the 
community in which the cooperative is formed; a ban on monopolization, speculation and 
exploitation; active participation of women; and no more than one person per family 
serving on the management board, which is elected annually by the General Assembly. 
Membership in a cooperative involves the purchase of shares, with the standing rate being 
20,000 Syrian liras (about $40) per share.

Women's cooperative business ventures account for about 3 percent of the Jazira district's 
economy. For Arin Sterk and Baran Bawer, members of an economy committee in the city of 
Qamishli (called Qamishlo by the Kurds), on the border with Turkey, the importance of the 
cooperatives lies in their battles against monopolies.

"Our economy should serve the needs of all the people and not just profit a few people," 
Sterk says. "We are not against free trade, but we need to prevent the formation of 
monopolies. A simple example is seeds. Rojava is an agricultural land, so we need to 
ensure that the seeds are in the hands of the people, and prevent any monopoly over them."

What kind of problems do you encounter?

Sterk: "Capitalist mentality is strong inside our society. There is a mentality of ‘I pay 
you and you work for me,' but we are fighting against this attitude. You find this kind of 
mentality on both sides: in the cooperatives, but also among responsible people in the 
economy committees. We need to understand that economics is connected to our mind-set. As 
such, the first step toward developing the economy must be to change women's mentality. 
The effects of hundreds of years of oppression through the patriarchal system, and the 
influence of the Syrian regime, as well as the impact of religion, are still strong. Women 
are still sometimes looked upon badly if they leave the house alone for work, because 
there should be a man at her side. So women's economic problems are bound to this mentality."

Bawer: "On the other hand, we also need to change the dominant, male mentality, the 
capitalist attitude that looks on everything solely as a means to profit. We cannot allow 
women to become independent by putting themselves in a position of being exploited by men. 
It's not about integrating women into a capitalist system - it's about building a new 
economic system."

Sterk: "We go to houses and talk to the men. We ask them, ‘Why don't you let your wife go 
to work?' We tell the men that women have the right to earn money, too, and help the 
family's financial situation. When we gather six or seven women, we ask them: ‘What kind 
of work do you want to do? Which type of cooperative could you work in?' As an economy 
committee, we can also give women financial support to start a cooperative. This is how we 
can motivate women to liberate themselves."

Are there other difficulties, apart from mentality?

Bawer: "There is a need to professionalize the women, to supply the needed skills. For 
example with regard to milk production, we had cases where the know-how was poor."

How many women have joined the cooperatives in Qamishli?

Bawer: "About 4,500 women are members of cooperatives. Most of these cooperatives are 
occupied with agriculture, but there are also restaurants, bakeries, patisseries, chicken 
farms, textile industries and some that manage electrical generators for the neighborhoods."

How are salaries organized in the cooperatives?

Sterk: "In cooperatives that sell products, such as shops, they divide the sales profits 
among themselves equally. In agriculture, each women decides how much land to work and for 
how many hours. She receives a proportional part of the produce and sells it independently."

The vision behind the creation of Rojava is astonishingly progressive - but there's a gap 
between it and reality. Many activists relate that they are having difficulty getting 
enough people involved in administrative roles in their locales: Most of them, especially 
women, are simply not used to the type of democratic activism required of them. And young 
people appear not to be very impressed by the new democratic system.

"The young people in our society are not joining the communal life," says Zelal Ceger, 
from Tev-Dem. "They see it as a prison. They are under the influence of capitalism; they 
don't accept the new system. They say they want freedom, they want to live in their way. 
But really, it's the commune that gives you freedom. You can solve all your problems 
through the communes. Some of this hasn't been understood yet, and thus we have certain 
difficulties."

That analysis is largely confirmed in a brief correspondence with a young computer 
programmer from Qamishli, who asked not to be identified by name.

"The system is not really functioning," he maintains. "The culture here is very communal, 
so people get along with their neighbors socially, but politically this is not an 
effective way to manage a society." Nevertheless, he believes in the potential of the 
democratic revolution underway in Rojava, which he believes is still in its incipient 
stages: "Whether they are efficient or not, we have to remember that the social structures 
are not yet fully formed. People can and should influence them. That is the challenge and 
the potential of Rojava. Rojava is not an empty page on which someone can create a new 
society out of nothing. It is a reality that is rooted in history, and in order to develop 
it we need to recognize its complexity and depth."

Silence in the West

One might think the emergence of a progressive political entity like Rojava would be 
welcomed by the enlightened West, which might even invest resources to ensure its 
development and survival. But it's just the opposite. The West's response ranges from 
relative indifference, as seen in limited media coverage and half-hearted, self-interested 
military support - to tacit hostility, because NATO supports Rojava's largest and most 
dangerous enemy: the Turkish army. Thus, as President Donald Trump withdraws American 
forces from Syria and Turkish President Tayyip Recep Erdogan assails Rojava with force of 
arms, there's a genuine danger that the most democratic autonomy regime in the Middle East 
will become no more than a historical curiosity, gradually assuming the aura of a legend.

"I think that part of the reason[why people don't talk more about Rojava]is that we no 
longer believe revolutionary utopian movements are possible," American anthropologist 
David Graeber, who has been writing about Rojava since his first visit there in 2014, 
tells Haaretz in a recent interview. "We've become so cynical that a lot of people just 
don't believe it. You get a lot of people on the left whose politics are: ‘Whatever the 
Americans do, we're against it.' I call it the loser left - they basically don't even 
imagine that they could win. And, frankly, a lot of liberals, in my experience, really 
don't like the idea of[direct]democracy; they might not admit it, but they're inherently 
suspicious of ordinary people's ability to govern themselves."

You've studied a lot of anarchist movements. What's unique about Rojava?

Graeber: "Since[1930s]Spain, there's been no place where so many people were able to 
create institutions outside of a state framework for so long. It's important to point out 
just how historically unprecedented some of the things that are happening[in Rojava]are. 
In Afrin, for example, I think two-thirds of all political positions are held by women. 
And that might be the only society in human history of which this can be said."

Leaving aside the external challenges, what do you think are the major internal challenges 
facing Rojava?

"Well, other than not getting killed... I think that if the revolution endures, the 
biggest problem will be the tension between the bottom-up structures and the top-down 
structures. They basically have the equivalent of a dual power system, but it's a dual 
power system where they themselves created both sides, which might be historically 
unprecedented. So you have the self-government system that has a parliament, ministers, 
and you have to have that to deal with foreigners, otherwise they won't take you 
seriously. For example, there's an airport in Qamishli, it's the only area that's still 
under Syrian government control. Why do they do that? Because if you're not a government, 
where are you going to fly? To fly anywhere, you need to have aviation agreements, you 
need to have security agreements.

"In a way, their isolation has been really helpful, because it made it possible to keep 
this centralized structure largely toothless. But once they start engaging with external 
structures, people with technocratic knowledge are going to have an advantage. They're 
going to take these[top-down]institutions - with the best intentions - and strengthen 
them, and that's going to create a threat to the bottom-up[decentralized]structures."

Rojava has indeed only begun to address the challenges of a modern society and economy. 
The power grid within its territory supplies electricity only in the morning and the 
evening; the rest of the time the localities rely on generators. Despite its aspirations 
to ecological sustainability, the Rojava General Council is compelled to rely mainly on 
oil resources. Not only that, but in the absence of a budget to underwrite modern drilling 
and refining facilities, it is unable to produce sufficient quantities of fuel for trade, 
and resorts to inefficient, environmentally harmful refining techniques. Indeed, because 
Rojava is besieged on all sides, current trade possibilities are more or less confined to 
Assad's Syria. Taxation policy is also still in its infancy, with most regions levying 
only import and export taxes and taxes on business that are not cooperatives, though 
income tax is collected in the Jazira district.

The economy in Rojava, as said, remains largely agrarian, and the fact that the majority 
of available resources (about 70 percent) go toward self-defense hinders economic and 
infrastructure development. A relatively new challenge is the tens of thousands of ISIS 
fighters who surrendered to the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. The al-Hawl camp in 
Rojava, for example, currently holds about 73,000 prisoners in an area of four square 
kilometers. Most of them are former fighters, but about 10,000 are their relatives, mostly 
women and children. The camps are a ticking bomb, in both humanitarian and ideological 
terms, and they are depleting Rojava's coffers at an unprecedented rate.

In the meantime, Ocalan continues to be a prisoner on Imrali Island, despite his repeated 
calls for peace over the past two decades and his assertion that he does not want an 
independent Kurdish state in eastern Turkey - only a confederated autonomy as in Rojava. 
In November 2018, Leyla Güven, a member of the Turkish parliament from the People's 
Democratic Party, launched a hunger strike to demand an end to Ocalan's solitary 
confinement and permission for him to meet regularly with his family, as well as with his 
lawyers; he had not met with the latter for some seven years, at that point. Thousands of 
Kurds worldwide subsequently joined Güven.

On May 2, after 176 days of striking and the submission of more than 800 petitions to the 
Turkish government, Ocalan was finally allowed to meet briefly with his lawyers. In a 
statement made through their auspices, he asked the hunger strikers not to put their 
health at risk and called once again for reconciliation. "There is an urgent need for a 
method of democratic negotiations, away from all kinds of polarization and culture of 
conflict in the solution of problems. We can solve the problems in Turkey, and even in the 
region - first and foremost the war - with soft power; that is with intelligence, 
political and cultural power instead of tools of physical violence," the statement said.

On May 26, following another plea to the strikers from Ocalan, the hunger strike ended.

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Message: 4






Following the merger of Alternative Libertaire and Coordination des Groupes Anarchistes 
---- Companions and comrades of the Libertarian Communist Union: ---- Receive from South 
America a great greeting and libertarian embrace of the organizations that signed this 
note of support for your unification process. The fusion of both organizations is very 
important for the advance of Organized Anarchism and our conception of the class struggle. 
---- We share our greetings for the conformation of the sister UCL (Libertarian Communist 
Union), after the merger of Alternative Libertaire and Coordination des Groupes 
Anarchistes ---- Companions and comrades of the Libertarian Communist Union: ---- Receive 
from South America a great greeting and libertarian embrace of the organizations that 
signed this note of support for your unification process. The fusion of both organizations 
is very important for the advance of Organized Anarchism and our conception of the class 
struggle.
France, a country with a tradition of peasant and worker struggles, the emblematic Paris 
Commune of 1871, some of whose protagonists, escaping repression, came to our beaches and 
organized anarchist unions and newspapers spreading "The Idea", as it was said in those 
days; the Labor Exchange and the revolutionary syndicalism of the early twentieth century, 
the struggles of '68, the constant mobilizations against cuts and the neoliberal advance, 
the current mobilizations of the "yellow vests" and the social movements, are part of the 
patrimony of the fight of the down on the whole planet. There is no denying its 
repercussion and incidence in various episodes and processes of struggle.

As we have already expressed on several occasions, sharing spaces and activities with 
several colleagues, it is our interest to strengthen ties, share and develop in common our 
tools of analysis and theory to analyze reality, draw action plans together, tasks 
concrete solidarity and support to colleagues and organizations in training, among others.

Because we bet on the growth of our current, on its influence at the level of each social 
formation and process of struggle, because we have much to say in these times that run and 
much to contribute in the construction of a world of justice, freedom and organized from 
below up in federalist form, we salute this Congress and offer our solidarity support to 
the new Organization that emerges from it.

Long live the new Libertarian Communist Union!
FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF POPULAR POWER
BY SOCIALISM AND FREEDOM
ABOVE THOSE WHO FIGHT!

Uruguayan
Anarchist
Federation Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira Anarchist Federation of Rosario (Argentina)
Nucleo Pro Federation (Chile)
Red and Black Anarchist Political Organization (Argentina)
Vía Libre (Colombia)

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31451

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Message: 5






The struggle must be organised at the base! ---- This summer the Vrije Bond will organise 
it's congress in the weekend of August 23-25. The idea is to the coming together of 
anarchists/members of the Vrije Bond to meet each other, make plans and give shape to the 
actions and infrastructure of the Vrije Bond. The initiative must come from the grassroots 
if we want to grow and strengthen the anarchist movement. This is why we want to call on 
people to organise local meetings in the run up to the congress. This way we can meet with 
our local comrades to discuss some ideas and hopefully form some concrete proposals for 
the congress. Of course people can organise based on other forms of affinity than 
geografical location, like themes or certain struggles. You can do anything you want.
We would love to help with organising these meetings, so if there are people who are 
interested but could use some help or advise, please let us know. We can help finding a 
location, mobilising Vrije Bond members and of course we can answer all your questions 
about the congress.

Do you want to organise a meeting? Let us know through vrijebondcongres2019 (at) riseup 
(dot) net

Militant snuggles,
Organising group Vrije Bond Congress 2019

https://www.vrijebond.org/organiseer-een-lokale-bijeenkomst-ter-voorbereiding-van-het-vrije-bond-congres/

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Message: 6





The telegram channel @situazion interviewed a Ukrainian miner who from 2015 to 2019 worked 
at the "A. Zasyadko mine" in Donetsk. Dmitry witnessed many events that took place in 
Donetsk during this period: how the DPR was formed (Donetsk People's Republic), how the 
war went on, how its miners' colleagues reacted to these events. For obvious reasons, 
Dmitry does not fully disclose his identity. ---- - Large team at your mine? ---- - Yes, 
big. More than three thousand employees. ---- - Who is the owner of the mine? ---- - The 
owner of the mine was and remains Zvyagilsky Efim Leonidovich. Veteran of all convocations 
of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The oldest acting politician. I did not just emphasize 
"was and remains." From March 1, 2017, the authorities of the DPR nationalized all 
Ukrainian enterprises and assigned them the status of a state-owned enterprise (state 
enterprise) of the DPR. But all this does not prevent Yefim Leonidovich from coming to the 
territory controlled by the DPR, with personal security guards armed with machine guns, 
and solving the internal technological problems of the mine.

- Normally paid? Was it possible to support a family for this salary?

"Our salary is good, but small," is the favorite expression of the miners. Food prices in 
Donetsk are the same as in Moscow. A salary of 15-25 thousand rubles, depending on the 
profession and the completed plan. Sometimes up to 30 in some teams reached, but this is a 
private and one-time case. So draw conclusions. Earlier, salaries for Zasyadko amounted to 
1000-1500 dollars.

- What were the working conditions (observance of safety measures, depreciation of means 
of labor, etc.)?

- It is impossible to violate safety at work. In general, more or less, attention was paid 
normally. Zasyadko is far from the worst example of working conditions in the mines of 
Donbass.

- During 2014-2018 mine worked? Were there any work stoppages due to the war? How long? 
Were there wage delays?

- There were practically no interruptions in the operation of the mine due to the 
development of the active phase of the hostilities, as well as significant wage delays. In 
this matter, of course, we must pay tribute to the organization of this enterprise. 
Because in other mines debts have accumulated good, and tails to reach to this day. There 
were interruptions in work due to a shortage of materials and their timely delivery due to 
the war.
Violations of the law in the provision of compulsory leave and accrual vacation / 
settlement - were!
Increase the number of working hours without a rate increase - it was! To promise one, and 
to pay another - was! There were no salary delays.

- How did the mood of the miners change with the events in the Donetsk region in the 
period from the beginning of 2014 to the time when you left the Donetsk region?

- I characterize briefly not only the mood of the miners, but in general, all over 
Donetsk. I personally do not know a single person who initially supported Ukraine, and 
then changed his views in the direction of the DPR. But I saw many examples of how the 
supporters of the DPR began to speak frankly and extremely negatively in the opposite. I 
personally communicated with a Russian, a special forces soldier who came to Donetsk to 
fight for ideological reasons, but then began to call the whole organization "banana 
republic". He tried to quit and go home, but he was refused under various pretexts. And 
such examples are not enough. The bulk of those supporting the republic are people who 
feed at their expense, at the expense of those miners themselves. The rest simply survive 
and wait for an early end to the conflict.

- Did you attend the rally at which the DNI was proclaimed? If present, describe your 
impressions.

- There were quite a few of these meetings. Was as a bystander. Yes, what impressions can 
be ... Ordinary residents of the city came to see where the noise came from, and the 
paid-up asset with the Russian and Dnepr flags made a picture. I remember how they, 
sandwiched and insecure, stood somewhere in the corner of the square. Over time, this is 
fake propaganda and big financial injections made them what they are.

- Have any of your relatives, acquaintances, and friends suffered during the war?

- There are victims! And killed and wounded and maimed.

- Were there any conflicts between your colleagues on the political mail regarding the 
support / non-support for the DPR, support / non-support for the events on Maidan and the 
then new government in Kiev represented by Poroshenko?

- No, there were no political conflicts in the mining environment, during this time, not a 
single one. Well, I definitely did not see. These are very optimistic and positive people. 
And among the miners, I did not observe any ideological supporters of the DPR or opponents 
of Ukraine. A lot of jokes and sayings, all sorts, about the whole conflict in general. 
Just people became hostages of the situation.

- Have there been similar conflicts among the residents of Donetsk?

- Concerning conflicts among residents of Donetsk. Personal examples do not know and 
rumored too. But I think that they definitely were. Here, these processes are hampered by 
the permissiveness of the local police. Many are simply afraid to express their point of view.

- Russian propaganda persistently calls individual militias from the DPR / LNR side 
"anti-fascist interbrigade". This refers to the individual citizens of the EU, communist 
convictions, who came to fight for the DPR / LPR. How relevant is the term "anti-fascist 
brigades"? Have you come across such foreign "leftists"? What do you think of their position?

"I don't know how about foreign leftists, but the Russian right is certainly enough!)) You 
can meet anyone in the DNR army: soldiers and officers of the regular army of Russia, 
Russian instructors, local Donetsk right and all marginals, drunks, and mercenaries who 
travel all their lives to all the hot spots of the world, Chechens, etc. "volunteers". But 
no anti-fascism and liberating spirit here and pulls. In the people's republic there is 
very little of the people's. So the anti-fascist international brigades, most likely 
another fiction of propagandists, in order to more clearly show the "fascist" Ukraine.

- Are there many miners - your colleagues went to the militia to fight for the NPT?

- No, none of my work colleagues went to war.

- Were there those who were against the DNI and tried to resist?

- Yes, there was resistance, it is now, but in a different format. In the first year of 
the war, the DPR militants had almost unlimited power. Special control over them was not 
conducted and they, in turn, created what they wanted. We walked with weapons throughout 
the city, supermarkets, parks, playgrounds. Wring out the car, looting in the houses that 
the owners left. Naturally, people just shut up. The arguments against the machine do not 
help.

- Were there those who immediately left the Donetsk region with the beginning of events?

- The first shelling began in the summer and many left immediately, in the first days. 
Nobody believed in what was happening. Yesterday the millionth city, the city of 
possibilities, developed and breathed deeply, and today mines are torn and there are 
already the first victims. Many thought it would all end quickly, just left for the sea. 
But it was not there...

- Were you a member of the RKAS (Revolutionary Confederation of Anarchists-Syndicalists 
named after NI Makhno)? What time is it?

- I am a member of RKAS since 2010.

- Have you tried to conduct any propaganda work among your colleagues as a member of the 
RKAS? How successful was this job?

- After the armed seizure of Donetsk, any dissent was punished without trial. Any 
dissatisfaction with the authorities could have been regarded as aiding "ukrofashistam", 
you could easily be written in the "dill". It has now become easier, but then it was the 
real Middle Ages. Agitation did not lead. So, backroom conversations.

- Was there a trade union in the mine? What kind of union? How strong were his connections 
with the team? What were the activities of the trade union?

- The union in the mine is the same as in other state-owned enterprises. Since Soviet 
times, its functions have not changed. Vouchers at the sea, all sorts of tickets, candy to 
children. He solved various problems of miners, organized a collection of money, blood for 
donation to injured workers or their relatives, and helped with the organization of 
funerals. By the way, I will return to the issue of the ability to organize, employees 
always financially help their colleagues, even if they haven't seen each other's eyes. Who 
how can.

- Have there been labor disputes at the mine? Did you manage to participate in them? What 
are the results?

- Labor conflicts never go beyond the abusive scuffle)). People can send each other, and 
after 10 minutes they are joking together. This is a completely normal and common practice.

- What is your opinion about the ability of workers to organize themselves in the struggle 
for their economic (wage increases, improved working conditions, etc.) rights? What is 
missing in this self-organization?

- The ability of workers to organize is quite high. Much higher than many ideological 
"true" leftists. I believe that this is the main driving force of the anarchist 
revolution. In their hearts lies the real rage and power of the deceived people. Such 
people can not buy and they do not need much. Not all, of course, such, but many. The main 
problem - to direct the rage with the right side, financial support, lack of resources. 
And there will be leaders both, and instigators, and craftsmen. During the period of the 
DPR rule there were 2 attempts to organize, but both were not successful due to lack of 
resources. For the first time, "Comrade Zakharchenko" simply drove a couple of Bobby with 
the military under the mine, and that was it. But in about a month their demand was 
fulfilled. And the second time, on Lenin Square, where workers gathered from all the 
mines, they simply threw out students with flags, balls, posters and music for a sports 
festival. The miners simply disappeared into this passionately joyful event. And they were 
threatened by machine gunners.

- Why did you personally move to Kiev? When?

- Why did I move from the DNI? There is no normal work, there are no normal wages, there 
are no banks. Station and no airport - bombed. The feeling that you live in a reservation. 
There is no freedom of speech. It is forbidden to conduct independent trade union 
activities, and indeed any kind of campaigning, if its meaning differs from the views of 
local authorities. A curfew was imposed from 23:00, the youth there simply suffocated. I 
see no prospects for professional and personal growth for myself. I also do not see ways 
and opportunities to realize myself as an anarchist. Therefore, I moved to Kiev in the 
spring of 2019.

https://avtonom.org/freenews/4-goda-v-dnr-vpechatleniya-ukrainskogo-shahtera

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